


Dear Jim

by CactusWren



Series: Finger Exercises [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Finger exercises, I will fill this prompt but I cannot promise what I'll fill it with, Kink Meme, Sexual Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-28
Updated: 2012-10-28
Packaged: 2017-11-17 06:28:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CactusWren/pseuds/CactusWren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly has a problem ... but Jim will fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Jim

**Author's Note:**

> The short pieces I post to the KinkMeme are mostly in the nature of finger exercises for writing: just playing around, seeing if I can fill a prompt (usually not in the nature of anything I'd normally write) while remaining true to the characters as I see them and keeping my writing muscles in shape. So I've called this loose assemblage, mostly of prompt fills, the Finger Exercises series.

“Sherlock.” Lestrade speaks harshly. “Sherlock, don't go in there – _don't._ Sherlock – ” Lestrade is the heavier of the two by a good margin, but Sherlock shoves him aside and strides into the crime scene.

Then, for only an instant, he does something John's never seen: he stops in the doorway, paralyzed at what he sees.

This should serve as a warning, but John is still horrified when Sherlock at last steps into the flat and John can see past him. He's seen worse, of course. Nothing is worse (oh, God, he prays, nothing ever) than what he saw in combat. But this is bad, still. And different. Unspeakable.

_Methodical._

The kitchen floor is pooled with blood. Molly Hooper, eyes wide with horror, lies naked at its center. Her hands and feet have been taped to the floor tiles, with masses of gaffer tape, layer upon layer. There's an incision at her throat, but most of the blood seems to have come from the deeper slash above her groin.

John steels himself to the discipline of Army, the discipline of medicine. Beside him he can sense Sherlock doing the same – Sherlock, who has never shown any uncertainty or disturbance at the most hideous scenes, is swallowing hard against sickness, fighting to keep his face expressionless. “C-cause of death apparently exsanguination,” he says, and John wonders briefly if anyone else heard the tremor in his voice.

Sally Donovan is able to make little pretense of police-officer objectivity. “Fucking Jesus,” she says from the door, her voice high and tense. “Why – why would she let someone – ”

“Immobilize her? She was drugged, obviously. Her attacker drugged her, gagged her, placed her – like this, and then waited for her to regain consciousness.”

“Gagged?” Lestrade's voice is rigid.

“Dishcloth lying against the baseboard. Apparently he made a token cut at her throat, but most of the damage is – elsewhere. Then when she was no longer able to scream, too weak from loss of blood, he removed the gag.

Moving with care, stepping around the pool of blood, John crouches to examine the incisions. “Sherlock,” he manages after a moment, his voice seeming caught just above a whisper. “Look. At this.”

Sherlock crouches beside him. “These – marks, at the edges of the throat wound,” John says.

Sherlock examines them, bending close. “Some – additional damage. Non-incisive – ” He breaks off.

John sets his jaw. Holds out a hand as if to a nurse: “Light,” he says flatly, and like a well-trained nurse Sherlock places a pocket torch in his hand. Together they look into the wound, to the damage deep within.

Then John places two gloved fingers between Molly's parted lips. Separates her jaws slightly – rigor is only beginning to set in – and prises out what's been placed into her mouth. “Evidence bag!” Lestrade snaps, behind him. “And a cooler!”

John examines the thumb-sized thing lying on his palm. “About – ten weeks along,” he says in an unnaturally calm voice. “Perhaps twelve. Not my speciality.” With great care he places it in the plastic bag given to him.

“Right – revise my earlier conclusions.” Sherlock is no longer trying to disguise the tremor in his voice. “She was drugged, placed in this position, gagged, and allowed to regain consciousness. Then, judging from the appearance of the throat wound – ” He breaks off and gestures to John. “Doctor?”

John swallows. “The incision is vertical, opening the airway without damaging the great vessels. Effectively it's a trachaeotomy, or started to be one. But the wound is too deep and too long, with apparent marks of surgical retractors, and there's been deliberate injury to – to the vocal cords.”

“Deliberate. Yes. Once she was conscious, the attacker opened her throat, slashed her vocal cords, and effectively silenced her. From the amount of blood spatter, I'd say you'll find a good quantity of blood in her lungs; she was trying to cough it out as she drowned in it. Then when she was no longer able to scream, he – sexual mutilation, female victim, presume male attacker – opened her abdomen, with her fully conscious, removed – ”

“Right.” Lestrade cuts him off with the single word.

There's a silence. Sherlock's gloved hand, almost steady, hovers over Molly's blood-matted hair. “Have the photos been taken?” he says, without turning his head.

“Just before you got here,” Lestrade says.

Sherlock touches her hair, brushes it away from her face. With exquisite care, he closes her eyes.

Then he looks closely. Gently, like one lifting a sleeping child, he moves her head, takes something from between it and the floor. It's a sheet of paper, A4, folded into fourths. He opens it

In Molly's hand, familiar from so many reports: “Dearest Jim, please help, I don't know what to do! I'm pregnant – I'm carrying your child, and I don't know what to do with it.”

And then, in another hand, and in some darkly red-brown fluid: “Don't worry, Molly darling, I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> This particular piece was a response to [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/19743.html?thread=120011807#t120011807):
> 
>  
> 
> _'Dear Jim, please will you fix it for me...? I'm carrying your child and I don't know what to do with it'_  
>  Jim/whoever else, mpreg is not preferred. Molly? fem!john? Irene? fem!Seb? author's choice! 
> 
>  
> 
> I'm not sure what the prompter had in mind. I'm _hoping_ she wasn't looking forward to seeing Jim Moriarty expressing his inner Cosby Dad, because I chose to give him a chance to express his inner Jack the Ripper.


End file.
